16. Nate
SIXTEEN
nate
“How did it go?” Lucas asked, handing me a beer.
I sat at his kitchen table, took a long swig, and didn’t say much for a few seconds. How did it go? “Exactly as you’d expect.”
“That good?”
“Worse.”
Neither of us spoke for half of the first beer. I replayed the conversation in my head. A huge part of me wanted to say, fuck it. Not give a shit about the fact that Zoe had lied by omission. Walk over to her apartment—the woman was in goddamn walking distance—and spend the rest of the night inside her. Claiming her.
But I couldn’t do that. Not right now.
“When you told me who he was. . .” My shoulders rose and sank.
“I can’t believe she didn’t mention him. Or that you sat next to the guy on the plane.”
I took another swig of beer. Not my first one but still so fucking good after almost a year.
We were both empty. “Did you eat yet?” Lucas asked.
“No,” I said.
“Come on. Let’s grab something.”
The last thing I wanted to do was go out. I hadn’t been to a bar in nearly a year and had been looking forward to doing that with Zoe. Having a drink with her. Going out to dinner with her. So many things we’d talked about, and here she was only a few blocks from me.
“What if Zoe heads out?”
“She won’t. Charlee’s over there. Probably Natalie, too, by now. Maybe even Mazzie and half the town. I’ll text Charlee, though, and have her give me a heads-up just in case.”
We headed downstairs to his tattoo parlor, which was fucking amazing, and out onto Main Street. “Not a bad little town,” I said as we passed some of the businesses either Lucas or Zoe had told me about. We walked into KC’s Taphouse and sat at the bar.
Immediately, a man greeted us.
“KC?” I asked Lucas.
“Sort of. Owen, I’d like you to meet my friend Nate.”
“Your partner-in-the-army Nate?”
He was a burly, down-home kind of guy. Flannel shirt. Welcoming smile.
“That’s the one.”
Owen reached his hand across the bar. “Great to meet you. Thanks for your service.” He held up a hand. “Before you say, ‘Just doing my job,’ I want to thank you anyway.”
I smiled, liking this guy already. “I guess Lucas and I are similar in some ways.”
“Eh, you’re way nicer than him, I can tell already. This guy came in here looking like he wanted to murder somebody.”
Lucas laughed. “Just one person.”
I had a feeling I knew who that one person was. Lucas was rough around the edges sometimes, but he was generally well-liked and vice versa.
“I talked to Charlee for the first time after I came back to town in this bar,” Lucas explained. Owen began to pour a beer. “Make that two.”
“I don’t know if I’d use the word ‘talk.’ Growled at her, maybe,” Owen said as he slid two beers across the bar.
I took out a credit card to open a tab, but Owen pushed it away. “On the house.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“Actually. . .” Lucas watched Owen pour a third beer. “Owen encouraged me to apologize to her. He overheard our first conversation. Apparently thought I was a little rough with her.”
“A little rough. You were a mean bastard,” Owen said, lifting his glass. Apparently, the beer was for him. “Welcome back,” he said.
We toasted. “Still is a mean bastard,” I said, grateful the conversation had taken my mind off Zoe for a few minutes at least.
“I’ll let you guys catch up,” Owen said, moving away to another customer.
“Nice guy.”
“He is. Owen and his family own half the town. You’d never know it, though. Really down-to-earth.”
“Oh wait, is that the same Owen that went to bat for you when some of the residents came out with pitchforks when you opened the tattoo parlor?”
“One and the same.”
Yeah, definitely liked the guy.
“So, about Zoe.” Lucas turned on his stool toward me. “Like Owen said, it was pretty rough going those first few days. Weeks, really. But we were able to work it out.”
“You and Charlee had a history, though. You knew what kind of person she was.”
“You’re saying you don’t know Zoe?”
I thought I did.
“Six months. She dated the guy for six months, wanted to marry him. And then starts texting me the same week they break up. What would you think? Especially if she forgot to mention the fact.”
Lucas frowned. “I might think she was afraid to mention it.”
“Because it looks bad.”
“Because it looks bad,” he agreed. “But that doesn’t mean it is bad. Assumptions can be dangerous. You know that.”
“I do.”
“You gotta talk to her. The fact that you’re here, and she’s”—he waved his hand in Zoe’s general direction—“right over there. I mean, come on.”
It was true. But I’d also been pissed. “It’s just not the meeting I’d been expecting.”
“Expectations also can be dangerous,” Lucas said.
“So now you’re a philosopher?”
“I hate philosophy.”
“Whatever you say.” I took a swig of beer.
“Nate, go talk to her.”
“Not tonight. I’d rather stay here. Catch up. Talk to her tomorrow.”
“Mmm, I think it’s a bad move. She might be ready to strangle you by the morning.”
“And that’s any different than right now?”
Lucas lifted his empty glass to Owen. “Your woman, your call.”
“Pfft. She’s not my woman. That’s the point.”
“So she omitted one little fact about her life. Big deal.”
“One little fact? That she was basically on the verge of getting engaged and broke up with the guy the same week we started talking? That’s not a little fact.”
“Sure, but it’s also irrelevant. She’s not with the guy anymore. But she is really, really into you. I was just with her the other day. There’s no doubt in my mind she likes you. A lot.”
“Maybe,” I said. “You mentioned food?”
Good timing. Owen had just reached us. “Two menus?”
“Please,” I said, suddenly starved. And ready for another beer. Or several.
If I couldn’t be with Zoe tonight, getting drunk with Lucas seemed like a decent alternative. With any luck, I wasn’t going to regret this decision in the morning. I could still text her. Meet her. Tonight.
Not like this.
We’d waited for weeks. What was one more night?
“Before we order, are you absolutely sure?”
I made decisions. Stuck to them. It was what I did. Wavering never did anyone any good.
“I’m sure.”
Feeling Lucas’s stare, I looked up from the menu at him. He just shook his head. “And you call me the mean bastard. You are one stubborn motherfucker, Nate Collins.”
I lifted my glass and clinked it with his.
“Takes one to know one.”
“That it does.”
Not my ideal night. Certainly not the one I’d expected.
But it was good to be home.